TODD SEAVEY
author of Libertarianism for Beginners and writer of/speaker about many other things

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Music, Mobsters, and Misdirected Regulatory Efforts

Is the music industry
evil?We’re hoping to discuss some
variation on that topic at the Oct. 23 Dionysium gathering at Muchmore’s, if
you have some expertise on either side of the issue and would care to
volunteer.

This much I’ll say: The music industry is arguably less evil
than human trafficking, the chosen profession of the cartel of bad guys in the Liam Neeson action movie Taken, the sequel to which comes out
tomorrow, I’m pleased to see.As
Scott Nybakken says, one of the reasons the first Taken worked is that it was unapologetically patriarchal: Dad
rescuing his sexually-exploited daughter from thugs – or in the sequel,
daughter and wife, which must be weird for the recently-widowed Neeson, but
then, he has a very special set of skills (called acting) and if you are in the
theatre this weekend, he will find
you.

Oddly enough, there is a slight connection between the bar
event and human trafficking, though.We
may well use Oct. 23 to discuss Muchmore’s – like all too many NYC
establishments – getting a summons for ostensibly violating the City’s
draconian “cabaret laws,” which
forbid even small amounts of spontaneous dancing at establishments not licensed
for dancing.It’s like Footloose in this insane, ostensibly
free-thinking city.

And a friend with some professional political experience
tells me the City suddenly resumed enforcing the laws in the 90s as an extra excuse to shut down the strip
clubs– and in some cases
prostitution, supposedly – that it then wanted to get rid of.So rather than target real problems directly
– by, say, arresting a violent pimp or john and leaving people who are doing no
harm alone – the law acts with its usual blanket unsubtlety, and everyone is
rendered motionless to this day.

In a City that seeks legal and regulatory solutions to such
terrible menaces as margarine and table salt, this explanation is at least
superficially plausible.